


Come Back to Me

by TheRookBook



Series: The Rookie (Tumblr Request) [8]
Category: The Rookie (TV 2018)
Genre: Not Beta'd, Some Fluff, hospital visits, hurt!Tim, there's a crash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-21
Updated: 2020-04-21
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:34:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23762398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheRookBook/pseuds/TheRookBook
Summary: When Tim gets hurt on shift, Lucy has to try and save him. Time will only tell if he's going to come back to her.
Relationships: Tim Bradford/Lucy Chen
Series: The Rookie (Tumblr Request) [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1663039
Comments: 7
Kudos: 126





	Come Back to Me

The green scenery of the mountains surrounded them as they drove back towards the city. They were headed back after a welfare check on an elderly lady who’s daughter was too busy to drive the short distance to check on her mother, so she had called the police to the job for her. The elder woman was surprised to see them on her stoop. She tried to apologize for them wasting their time with the drive up, but Lucy just explained that it was just apart of their job. 

“Can you imagine someone not wanting to come check on you,” Lucy asked once they were back on the road heading back to the city. 

Tim shrugged beside her. “That’s probably going to be me in about forty years,” he says nonchalantly, his eyes focused on the road. 

Lucy laughed beside him. “Oh, come on. Don’t be so gloomy. You don’t know what the future holds.” 

“I’m not being gloomy. I’m being realistic. Isabel and I never had a chance to have kids so that’s out. Rachel left to travel after her she tested negative. I’ll probably just be a grumpy, lonely old man that lives all alone.” 

Lucy’s eyes rolled as she looked over at the smirk on his face. “What is it you say? Everything happens for a reason. Maybe you just need to open your eyes a little bit and see what’s right in front of you,” she said with a smile. He looked over at her, a smile on his face. “Tim,” she yells, looking back at the road when a car came flying around the curve in their lane. 

He jerked the wheel causing the car to dart to the right, sliding into the ditch. He’s still fighting with the wheel when the car started to fishtail back onto the road. The wheels bounced off the ground as their car slid across the road. The momentum of the slide propelled the car down the other side of the hill. 

The last thing they both hear before darkness overtakes them is the sound of the metal of their car crunching around them as the car started to roll down the embankment. 

\--

Lucy was the first to come to. Their shop had luckily landed on its wheels, pinned against a tree on Tim’s side. She does a quick self-assessment determining she’s probably fine before she looks over at Tim beside her. 

He’s still unconscious. His head resting against the door. She can see open cuts from the glass beside his eye. Undoing her seatbelt, she reached over to him. Her fingers pressed against his carotid artery hoping to feel a pulse. A sigh of relief escaped her when she felt a soft pulse against her fingers. She knows she needs to get them out of the car to better assess their injuries. 

Lucy undoes his seat belt when her throat runs dry. There’s a large branch sticking out of his side. It must have happened when the car was rolling down the hill. She doesn’t know how much blood he had already lost, but she needs to get him out so she can tend to his wound before he loses too much blood. 

Lucy carefully finished getting his seatbelt off. “Tim,” she called trying to get him to at least make some type of movement. “Tim,” she tried again, but nothing.

She slides one arm under his right arms trying to shift him carefully, so it doesn’t cause him too much pain. He’s has a good six inches on her, if not more so this wasn’t going to be easy. She managed to slide both arms under his and pulled him across the front seat causing him to groan in pain. “I know. Sorry,” she mutters as she continues to pull him from the car. 

Carefully she eased him out of the car and to the ground away from the car before getting the first aid kit from the war bag in the back. She tore open the gauze and pressed it against his side. She sat with her back pressed against a rock, Tim’s upper half resting on her lap. Lucy checked her phone praying that she’d have a bar to call for help, but unsurprisingly there was none out in the hills. Someone would notice they were gone soon. Right? 

Lucy lost track of time as she sat there her hand pressed against his wound with one hand while the other gently ran through his short-cropped hair. His chest was still rising ever so slightly telling her, he was still with her. She couldn’t lose him. Not like this. Not at all. 

“ _Stars shining bright above you_

_Night breezes seem to whisper I love you_

_Birds singing in the sycamore tree_

_Dream a little dream of me_ ,” she started singing softly looking down at him. The last time she needed to rely on this song, it gave her hope that they would find her after Caleb buried her in the barrel. It filled her with hope that they would find her. That Tim would find her, and everything was going to be okay. Now she prayed it gave him the hope she was searching for so he would stay with her. 

“ _You gotta make me a promise_

_Promise to me you’ll dream_

_Dream a little dream of me_ ,” she finished softly, a lone tear rolling down her cheek. Her hand left his hair to quickly wipe it away. She leaned her head back against the rock praying that someone would be here soon. 

“Lucy,” he says roughly after a minute. “You never told me you could sing,” he says opening his eyes for the first time looking up at her. 

She laughs above him. “You never asked.” 

Tim laughs and immediately groans in pain from the movement. She feels him shift slightly against her. “Can you do me a favor when you get out of here?” 

“Me? Tim, we’re both getting out of here. They’re already looking for us. It won’t be long now.” 

She feels his head shake on her lap. “You are still a terrible liar, that’s one thing I was never able to teach you,” he teases. “We both know that’s not going to happen.” 

“Tim-”

“I need you to,” he paused swallowing heavily. “I need you to find Isabel and tell her. Okay? Can you do that for me, boot?” 

Lucy has to fight back the tears, so they don’t fall. She can’t let him see her cry. Not now. “I’ll do whatever you want me to do.” 

“You better not let all your training go to waste with your new TO. I spent—too much time on you.” He takes a deep shaky breath before locking eyes with her above him. “You were right. You are the best rookie I ever trained.” 

The emotion that she was trying to suppress busted through her holds as his eyes closed and she feels all the tension leave his body as he goes limp on her lap. Her hand runs through his hair again until the whirl of the chopper’s blades hovered above them. 

_ Dream a little dream of me  _

-Two months later-

Lucy walked through the hospital doors and rode the elevator to the third floor. She’d done this every day for the past two months. She knew most of the nurses in the ICU on a first-name basis by now. They let her visit him well after visiting hours and sometimes she would sleep right there beside him. She just thought it was because they knew the two were partners, but more than once they walked in on her holding his hand as she slept beside him. 

“Hey Landry,” she said walking through the doors of the ICU unit. “Anything new today?” 

“No ma’am Officer Chen,” the young woman said with a slight grin. “He’s getting stronger each day. His vitals still look good. It’s still a waiting game.” 

“Trust me. Tim Bradford will wake up when he’s damn good and ready,” she said with a smile stopping in front of his door. “Thank you.” 

Lucy pulled the sliding glass door open and stepped inside, gently closing the door behind her. She tossed her bag on the couch before grabbing her chair and rolling it closer to his bed. She sat there for a moment just letting her eyes rake over him. His cuts on his face had healed long ago. They had taken the ventilator out over a week ago when his oxygen levels had finally improved, and he was trying to breathe over the machine. His long legs were covered by her personal favorite blanket that she brought him with permission from the nurses. 

“I don’t know if you can hear me or if you heard anything else that I’ve told you, but I want to believe that you can. You were always good at listening to me ramble on and on in the shop. Today was my last day of training,” she said softly, her eyes falling away from him. “It felt weird you not being there. You were supposed to be there. John and Jackson tried to get me to go out and celebrate, but I needed to see you. You were supposed to be there and tell me how proud you were in your very own Tim Bradford way like Harper and Lopez did. They miss you. Everyone does. We’re all ready for you to wake up and come back to us,” she said grabbing his hand. “After everything we’ve been through, you shouldn’t have to miss this day. The only way you can make it up to me for missing everything is if you wake up right now. It’s been two months. Two very long, slow, hard months. They say you’re getting stronger each day. That your body is healing. I just need you to come back to me. Come back to Kojo, he misses his co-parent,” she says with a smile. “Just please come back to me,” she says barely above a whisper. 

The steady beat of his heart rate monitor lured her to sleep after the long day. Her hand still holding his as her head hit the mattress of the bed and she was out like a light. 

“Lucy,” someone said loudly causing her jump. Her eyes landing on the morning nurse standing on the other side of the bed. Her eyes meeting Lucy’s. “Sorry,” the nurse, Ann, apologized taking in Lucy’s frazzled look. 

“It’s okay. I probably needed to wake up anyway,” she said straightening up in her chair, feeling the stiff muscles in her back protesting. “I didn’t mean to fall asleep. It was just a rough day yesterday,” she offered softly. She didn’t even notice the firm grip on her hand being returned from the man laying on the bed. 

“Did you miss me that bad?” 

Lucy’s head snapped to the head of the bed. Tim’s bright eyes looked back at her. The smile that he rarely showed teasing her. 

Before she could stop herself, Lucy was throwing herself across him. She tried to wrap her arms around him as much as possible. She felt him shift allowing her arms to fully wrap around him, his holding her just as close.

She could have hugged him until her arms fell off, but she pulled herself back. “You’re awake.” 

“Mmhmm.” 

“How long have you been awake?” 

“A couple of hours.” 

Lucy closed her eyes shaking her head. “A couple of hours? Why didn’t you wake me up?” 

Tim just shrugged. “Figured you earned a good sleep. No matter how uncomfortable the position maybe,” he said with a teasing grin. 

“I’ll send the doctor in, in a few minutes to do his checks,” Ann said walking away from the other side of the bed towards the door. “It’s good to have you back Officer Bradford,” she says with a smile towards the pair. 

“It’s good to be back.”

It was at that moment that Lucy realized her hand had fallen back into his effortlessly. She tried to slowly, pull it away to save both of them the awkwardness, but his hand wrapped around hers tightly stopping her. 

She looked back up at him. “I’m glad you’re awake,” she told him with a soft smile. 

“You kind of told me I had to.” 

He had heard her. He had heard her the whole time.

**Author's Note:**

> Aye! Thanks for reading! Comments and kudos are appreciated! 
> 
> Join me on Tumblr @therookiebook!


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